The company said that 28% who received the drug discontinued treatment in the trial, compared to 18% among those who received a placebo.
Viking Therapeutics, Inc. (VKTX) on Tuesday said that the oral tablet formulation of its weight loss drug VK2735 demonstrated a statistically significant reduction in body weight compared with placebo in a mid-stage trial.
Shares of the company, however, slumped 36% in the premarket session as 28% of the participants who received the drug discontinued treatment, compared to 18% among those who received a placebo. The most common reason for dropping out of the treatment was gastrointestinal (GI)-related adverse events, said the company.
Viking added that a majority of the reported adverse events were categorized as mild or moderate in severity. VK2735 is being developed in both oral and subcutaneous formulations for the potential treatment of various metabolic disorders such as obesity.
After 13 weeks of receiving once daily doses of the oral tablet formulation of VK2735, participants demonstrated reductions in mean body weight of as much as 12.2% from baseline, the company said. The trial enrolled 280 adults who are obese or overweight with at least one weight-related co-morbid condition.
On Stocktwits, retail sentiment around VKTX jumped from ‘bullish’ to ‘extremely bullish’ over the past 24 hours, while message volume rose from ‘normal’ to ‘high’ levels. According to Stocktwits data, retail chatter around the stock rose 239% over the past 24 hours as of Tuesday’s early hours.
A Stocktwits expressed pessimism, opining that analysts would now downgrade the stock over the study results.
Another more optimistic user opined that the stock would eventually trade higher, adding that there is no reason for such a deep drop.
JPMorgan, which has an ‘Overweight’ rating on Viking shares, said that while VK2735’s profile today does not look as clean as in an early-stage study, the oral drug still offers strong efficacy with a manageable tolerability profile. While the treatment discontinuation rate due to adverse events in the mid-stage study was 20% in the treatment arm, which is high, the placebo arm also showed a 13% discontinuation rate, the analyst noted.
Earlier this month, Eli Lilly, known for its subcutaneous weight loss drug Zepbound, said that its investigational oral weight-loss drug called Orforglipron lowered weight by an average of 12.4% in a late-stage study at its highest dose. In Lilly’s study, over 24% patients discontinued treatment at the highest doses compared to nearly 30% with placebo in the trial.
VKTX stock is up by 5% this year but down by about 37% over the past 12 months.
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